sidwich

Although not a novelist or a playwright, Clifton Webb's Waldo Lydecker in Preminger's "Laura" is the first thing I thought of when I saw this topic. There's a very twisted Pygmalion aspect to Lydecker, and how he can't bear to have this perfect woman who he has created end up with any other man.

Yes, Heche has also spoken very fondly of working on "Another World." A few years ago, there was a question of a possible gap of a few weeks in the role of Vicky/Marley; they might have been between actresses in the roles, I think. Much to the chagrin of her agent, Heche actually was in discussion with the producers to return to AW to bridge the gap. It turned out not to be necessary, but she's definitely never looked down on her time on the show, and the veterans speak very warmly of her. I actually remember watching "As The World Turns" when Julianne Moore was Frannie/Sabrina the first time, and there are times I still think of her in the role when I see her. She looks great, and she can actually still move her face!

I think the exporting of American movies and television has a lot to do with that. For good or ill, much of world is now growing up watching as much American TV as they do homegrown. Being stuck in a Peruvian hospital bed last year in relatively remote Peru, over the course of 48 hours I remember watching Kyle XY, CSI, CSI: Miami, Numbers, Glee, Bones and various movies, and those are the ones that I can remember (painkillers, ya know...). Most were still in English with Spanish subtitles. To tell the truth, it probably wasn't that different from being stuck in a hospital bed watching television in Los Angeles... But anyway, with so many people watching American television, their ears are becoming attuned to the accent and inflections. People reproduce what they hear, so of course, someone who grows up watching "Friends" is going to be able to reproduce something that sounds like someone speaking on the show. It's the same reason why more and more people in the UK are speaking "BBC English." I expect that with the growing prevalence of BBC America and DVDs of popular British shows like Doctor Who, there will probably be at least a little improvement in the reproduction of the British accent.

Yes, the Kellys are quite prominent. When my mother worked on the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, one of the members of the USOC was John Kelly, her brother. I think the family has quite a history in crew.

No, of course, some people learn how to dance on the show. A fair number actually come out the other side with some actual dance skills. The pros that I think actually have a good track record of actually teaching their celebrities how to dance pretty consistently are the following: Cheryl Burke, Kym Johnson, Louis Van Amstel, Jonathan Roberts, and the Wonder Triplets (Julianne Hough, Derek Hough and Mark Ballas). Allowances have to be made for the individual celebrity's physical abilities, talent, background and attitude, but most of their celebs show pretty clear improvement from Week 1 until they leave the show. The pros that really seem to have variable results based on the celeb are Maksim Chmerkovsky and Karina Smirnoff. I think they can teach some students, but it really seems to depend on whether they "click" or not. The pros that tend to have minimal success in actually teaching their celebs are the following: Anna Trebunskaya, Alec Mazo, Edyta Sliwinska, and Tony Dovolani. I very rarely see any real improvement in their celebrities from week to week. I do think Anna might work out with Evan Lysacek, though. He's not my favorite skater, but he is obviously athletically-talented, hard-working and used to being coached. Anna's teaching seems to consist mainly of the "Do this!" *demonstration* method, which doesn't work with most beginners because it they have little to no ability to imitate the demonstration, and it doesn't give beginners any idea where to start. Evan may actually be talented enough and well-trained enough to recreate Anna's movements with his body even if he doesn't have the concepts explained to him. For example, Evan's actually getting bend in his knees and real push in his steps, which most of Anna's celebs never accomplish (Jerry Rice never got this even after months), and I would guess it's because he can see Anna do it and mimic it even though she doesn't articulate it. I don't know if it will work with the concepts of leading/following, but that is pretty invisible to most laypeople even if it would never work in real competition or the social dance floor. I think Evan will have a harder time keeping his arms under control on the Latin/Rhythm side, though.

I think stage to screen adaptations are often difficult because stage pieces are designed to work within the context of live performance. Allowances need to be made for actors to make it from one scene to another, costume changes, set movement, etc. With musicals, consideration for the limits of human physical ability needs to be made, for example not having a vocal immediately follow a long dance sequence (I'm ignoring Michael Bennett and "A Chorus Line"). Many older plays and musicals have what are otherwise superfluous scenes/sequences strictly for the ability to make a scene change behind the curtain. It takes a very good director/screenwriter/producer to be able to take that stagebound material and reimagine the cinematic possibilities. Much of what is successful about Robert Wise's adaptation of "The Sound of Music" is because Wise did not feel bound by the original material, and liberally cut, pasted and deleted whole chunks of what had been performed onstage into something that was actually a coherent movie from something that is usually considered one of the less artistically successful Rodgers and Hammerstein works. Some pieces that I do think work very well that made the shift from stage to screen are Ernst Lubitsch's "The Merry Widow," Chuck Walter's "Good News," "Amadeus," and Branagh's "Henry V" (I'm not counting Olivier's "Henry V" mainly because of the cuts required by wartime censorship). I like these because they work exceptionally well as movies; I don't feel like I'm watching the adaptation of a play/musical when I watch them. They stand on their on own in the film medium. As an aside, I like the clips that I have seen of Judi Dench as Sally in the original London production of "Cabaret." From the bits I have seen of her, she must have been a very fine Sally, indeed.

Yes, the CD at Worlds this year is the Golden Waltz, which is one of the most difficult CDs; many consider it the most difficult CD out there, much more difficult than say, the Tango Romantica which was chosen for the Olympics this year. The Golden Waltz is also one of my favorites, and has been since Klimova and Ponomarenko first performed it back in the 80s. It's a lovely piece of choreography; Dubova/Klimova/Ponomarenko really captured the speed and rotation of the Viennese Waltz, and put it on ice. The speed and rotation of Viennese Waltz is really a killer, especially for beginners who don't know how to control it. Making the full 180 over and over again in three beats is deceptively difficult, and a real test of good technique where there is no place to hide with complex figures. Although they're not Europeans, I do think that Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir perform the Golden Waltz exceptionally well. No one does it as well as Klimova and Ponomarenko on whom it was originally choreographed (and no one does the complete original choreography that they performed, either), but I think Virtue and Moir's speed, deep edges, classic posture and feel for the music serves the Golden Waltz well.

My old standard answer to this was Sweeney Todd which I think is still a fanfastic piece all around, but as I get older I am increasingly impressed by Sunday in the Park with George. I was not terribly fond of Sunday when I was younger; I found the book overly talky, and I thought the music was opaque. But in the last few years, I've seen a number of revivals of Sunday, and I've found each of them incredibly touching, personal and emotionally intimate in a way that I've found very rare in theatre. It just worked, even the stripped down, bare-bones incarnation of the Sundaythat I saw in Los Angeles, and I didn't think that that was even possible, given the nature of the piece. I also have to stick up for Passion, which is one of my personal favorites though it divides even sondheads. Musically, it's my favorite Sondheim. Sondheim can write catchy tunes, but more often than not, he chooses not to. The pastiches in Merrily We Roll Along are very catchy, but I think "Opening Doors" from that show is also his commentary on the "hummability" question. (Personally, I think he may have been scarred by working with Richard Rodgers.) Ironically, I think more songs from Merrilly have become cabaret standards than any other Sondheim show ("Old Friend," "A Good Thing Going," "Not a Day Goes By," and "Our Time.") You are very wise, dirac. And yes, the book of Anyone Can Whistle is extremely problematic. I've seen a recording of the BC/EFA concert with Madeline Kahn, Bernadette Peters and Scott Bakula, and even with the cast and the music, it's very hard to sit through the whole thing, even with a cut-down book. It makes you feel like you've been trapped by Arthur Laurents at his most lecturey while at a neverending cocktail party. Yes, I've heard many times that Sondheim had a very profound relationship with Lee Remick, and that she was the only woman he seriously contemplated marrying (I'm not sure where that leaves Mary Rodgers). There are great stories about them together.

Anna T. is the best dancer on both sides (Ballroom and Latin) out of all of the pros, but I think she's a terrible teacher and choreographer. I'm afraid we're stuck with Evan's flailing limbs for the course of the show. I was hoping Evan would get Anna D. since she's tall enough and a much better teacher (but then that's most of the other pros). I think the Plus 8 are still in Pennsylvania. If Kate Gosselin is training out of the East Coast, I think Tony Dovolani is the only male pro tall enough based on the East Coast. Jonathan Roberts is based in San Francisco and Alec is also based out of the Bay Area. ETA: I'm pretty sure Miss Anderson's assets are already bolted on. I'm not too worried about them needing any extra strapping down, anymore than some of the other surgically enhanced celebs or pros have in past seasons.

I haven't been following along as much as I used to, but of the young American singles skaters I've seen, I think Adam Rippon, Mirai Nagasu and Christina Gao have a lot of potential and will probably be among the U.S. contingent for Sochi. Jeremy Abbott is actually my favorite of the current U.S. contingent, and I think he can be one to watch if he stays injury-free for another 4 years and especially if he can get his nerves under control. Christina Gao just switched over to the Orser/Wilson team last year, and is blazing her way up the ranks like a Yu-Na Kim mini-me at the moment. She's very technically secure, but she's still physically under-developed at the moment. I expect that after Kim retires, Orser and Wilson will be grooming her as the next one to watch, along with Adam Rippon who moved over to Orser/Wilson a couple of years ago. I'm not sure what's going to happen to Rachel Flatt. I suspect she's maxed out her current coaching situation, and I think she's going to have to move one to someone else to help her reach the next level. Her jumps are very secure, but she's very slow across the ice, her positions are mediocre and she's really not a great performer. At the same time, she's planning to go to college next year, and I'm not sure how much she's planning on training during that time or who she's planning to train with since she's not planning on staying in Colorado. I think Abbott really started to bloom when he left Tom Z. who is Flatt's current coach, so I think the change may actually be good for her. U.S. pairs are kind of a mess at the moment. McLaughlin and Brubaker were the ones to watch a year ago, but Keauna McLaughlin had the audacity to start going through puberty and they had a disastrous nationals and missed the Olympic team altogether. Denney and Barrett have been doing pretty well, but I'm not sure they're going to be competitive for another four years since it looks like Cady Denney may have started puberty as well. Honestly, my money is on either Zhang and Zhang or a Chinese pair to be named later to win the gold medal in Sochi. You really can't beat a totalitarian sports system for sports like pairs skating.

Yes, there are on-ice requirements. The short program is really an exercise in hitting 8 required elements so the judges can compare among the skaters. For example, for senior men's singles, I think they are: double or triple axel, combination jump, jump out of footwork, flying spin, combination spin, camel/sit spin, and two step sequences. The long program is much more fluid, but there are requirements there as well. I haven't looked at the rule book recently, but for senior men's singles, I think the requirements still include a combination jump, an axel jump, a flying spin, etc. There are also maximums as well, such as only one jump combination can include three jumps, etc. Of course, there are requirements within those requirements. Spins must include at least 6 rotations, but a fantastic spinner like Stephane Lambiel is getting many more than that, and Lambiel garners extra points for his exceptional spinning (speed, rotations, positions, etc.). The interesting thing with the new scoring system is that in some ways there are "requirements" where there aren't really requirements. The flying spin requirement has been around for a long-time, but in olden days many skaters would do a death drop for the requirement. Now, since the COP point system rewards the flying sit spin more, I feel like I see many flying sits now and very rarely any death drops. Similarly, a centerpiece of Michelle Kwan's programs under the 6.0 system was an inside-out spiral (transitions from forward inside edge to forward outside edge), but at the tail end of her competitive career she gave it up to do a spiral which would garner more points under the new code of points. If you think a lot of ladies' spiral sequences look alike, they do, because that sequence garners a lot of points, although it's not per se required.

I don't think he's going to go there. In the move to training with Tarasova, Asada lost both her triple lutz and her triple salchow. She has a fantastic trick in the triple axel, but her array of jumps is the narrowest of the top ladies; she's also stopped doing a triple-triple combination. To be competitive, she has to hit her triple axels or else she tumbles down the standings now because there's nothing else to fill out her scores. I was at the finals of the Ladies Event at Worlds last year in Los Angeles when Asada missed her triple axels, and her program is almost completely empty without them. It's very obvious live. It was really sad; without the axels, the judges had nothing else to score her on, and she fell of the podium when she had been World Champion the year before. Asada desperately needs a new coaching situation, whether in Japan or elsewhere. I know her family is very reluctant to have her leave the country, but triple axel aside, her jump technique is really suffering under the current situation.

Angela Bassett lip-synched to Tina Turner's recordings in "What Love's Got to Do With It." Though she's a wonderful actress and spectacular as Turner, the lip synching is very awkward. Bassett just can't seem to get her miming to synch with Turner's vocal and it's actually quite distracting in the musical sequences.

I'll go out on a limb and say that as much as I like Hugh Laurie, I think David Shore and his writing staff have been running on fumes over the last 2-3 years. "House" was very good during it's first few years, but like many long-running shows, I think it's well past it's peak. I think its best writers have probably either written themselves out at this point or been lured away to create and/or run other shows. And I only watch awards shows for the fashion show. No point in expecting anything based on merit. Well, maybe this year I'll watch for the battle of the exes (James Cameron vs. Mrs. Cameron #3, Kathryn Bigelow).

Well, not quite, but the Duchess of York co-produced the film so it's not surprising that it might have a reverential tone.

I have not seen it, but my mother saw it during one of her trips to NY in the fall. She was really looking forward to it for many of the reasons you mentioned, papeetepatrick, but she came away very disappointed. She felt the production values were not up to Roundabout's standards (and ticket prices) and that casting was generally poor (although surprisingly, she liked Carla Gugino). I've heard generally good things about the ensemble, but otherwise, it definitely sounds like a weak effort from the Roundabout.

This article from the Seattle Times would beg to differ: British Actors all the Rage on American TV I think everyone thinks something is working against them. Most of my American actor friends feel that they're being elbowed out by British and Australian actors because they are willing to work for less, and Canadians because the Candian tax credit system makes it so economically attractive to cast wtih Canadian actors. The truth is the business is tough for everyone.

Barring injury, I would be very surprised if Wiles does not perform the Lilac Fairy during the Spring Season. Also, although I like both Wiles and Hallberg very much separately, they have gotten very mixed reviews as a pair. In some ways, they remind me very much of Angel Corella and Paloma Herrera who were paired many times early in their ABT careers and less and less as they developed and it became clear that working with other dancers brought out more from their performances.

I don't think that you have to be fat to sing, but Miss Voigt may have to have something approaching the mass that she previously carried to create the same quality of sound that she did when she tipped the scales. The unique combination of nose, vocal chords, diaphragm, mass, etc. that Miss Voigt used previously has changed in a major way. She has probably lost half her body mass, and effectively gone from creating her sound in viola to to a violin, and I am not surprised that the sounds that she is creating now are not the same as they were before her surgery. Now, whether what she is able to produce now is good, bad or indifferent, is another story, but I'm not surprised at all that it is different.

I think this is a large part of it. Although this chart only goes up to 1994, you can see the impact the boomers make on the U.S. median age over time as they age: U.S. Median Age statistics In addition to living longer, though, the senior population is also staying in good health longer and many of them are also in better financial condition than previous generations. They are better able to continue the activities they enjoy (such as concert-going) than their parents, and that definitely drags the median age of audiences up.

I think this is based on the reports of survivors that after attempting to evacuate as many passengers as possible, Andrews was last scene in the room with the clock and the painting. I think it is in the mini-series as well. Garber does a beautiful job with it.

I have to stick up for Cameron's "Titanic," as well. The screenplay is laughable at parts, but Cameron is still an excellent director and I think he does some of his most elegant work on "Titanic." I really like the super-closeups that he does of DiCaprio's eyes while he's sketching, and the tranformation of the wreck back into the brand-new ship is superbly done. And although DiCaprio has done much more heavyweight work since "Titanic," I actually think "Titanic" is some of his best work. (I find most of his work to be terribly labored since then.)

Very early one morning some time ago, I was moving my boxes into my new apartment when a small black cat wandered in the open door, plopped himself down and cocked his head to one side to watch me lug the boxes around. "Yes, yes, this will do very well," he seemed to be saying. Having grown up with a distinct lack of pets in the household, I clearly had no idea what was in store. Three years, many, many cases of catfood, a litter box, and a couple of boxes of Frontline later, he's still here. He wakes me up and leaves with me when I go to work, and waits on the porch when I come home at night. I'd never really thought too much about familiar companionship, but he is as much of a companion as any human I've known. Put me down as one who is very unsure of the whole concept of owning a cat. Some might say that cats think they're humans. Others might say that cats think humans are cats. Elvis knows he's a cat, and he knows I'm a human, but I'm sure if you were to ask him, he's say that he found me in the People Pound three years ago and decided to take me as a rescue human.

No, I don't think they consider her "white" because of her skin tone and her Cuban heritage, although she is Caucasian which is why I didn't use the term "Caucasian." For example, I think it would have been issue to cast Cameron Diaz who is also of Cuban heritage but who has played up her blonde All-American persona for all it's worth. (There was a fascinating article in the "Los Angeles Times" about the casting of "Hitch" when it came out. I'll try to dig it up.) It goes back to the issue of whether it is acceptable to certain audiences for a black man to kiss a white woman onscreen. It's all about perception to the audience.

Actually, although the "Thriller" album was released in 1982, the video for "Billie Jean" was not released until 1983 and the famous "Thriller" video was not released until 1984. And as to the question whether the MTV racial question was noticeable at the time, I think it was noticeable to certain segments of society, probably most noticeably to the black artists who were missing out on the promotion of having their videos played on the new and burgeoning MTV, although David Bowie famously had an outburst on-air about the lack of black artists' videos. To get away from the Sharpton hype and eulogizing hyperbole, this is an article that came out a few years ago about what was going on at the time: Why it took MTV so long to play black music videos This Blender blurb also came out a few months ago and is more generally about "Billie Jean" but also discusses the dispute between MTV and CBS to air the "Billie Jean" video: Blender on Billie Jean I think television is an interesting comparison. Were there African-American actors on television during the 1960s and 1970s? Absolutely, but "The Cosby Show" was still important in that it showed that mainstream audiences were willing to watch an African-American family that didn't live in a junkyard ("Sanford and Son") or the projects ("Good Times") and make it #1. Incidentally, "The Cosby Show" debuted in the fall of 1984, in the wake of "Thriller" and "Billie Jean." I don't think the MTV ever said, "Oh, we don't want to air videos by any black artists," but I do think there was a strong sense that mainstream white audiences were not going to want a channel that featured predominantly black artists. It was a business decision, and it's the same business decisions that was made by many magazines not to feature African-American models or celebrities on their covers for many years. Or why studios and networks are very reluctant to make films with large budgets with predominantly African-American casts. For example, for all of Will Smith's box office power, the studio refused to cast a black woman as Smith's love interest in "Hitch" because there was fear that it would be ghettoized as a "black film" and lose appeal to white audiences. (Interestingly, the studio also refused to cast a white woman because they feared the film would alienate audiences in the South and Eva Mendes was cast). Even with films that are ostensibly about moments in African-American history such as "Amistad" and "Glory," white characters are often the lead characters who are somehow saving or leading the African-Americans through a crisis. Apparently, white males don't like to see anybody but white males, because it's the same reason why studios don't like to make movies that feature predominantly female casts or have a female artists open concerts of other female artists. This is still very common. It's not like Natalie Portman is actually named Natalie Portman (which is always interesting to me since she's quite devout). Performers don't like to limit their perceived versatility with names that are overly "ethnic." On the Jewish front, there's also John Stewart and Gene Wilder, but in other Anglicization, there's also of course Martin and Charlie Sheen (Estevez), Meg and Jennifer Tilly (Chan), and on the TV front James Roday (Rodriguez) and Paul Anthony Stewart (Tamaccio). Actually, even clubs that did admit "black" patrons often used the "paper bag" test, that is, patrons who were considered darker than a paper bag were not admitted.